


Deep Holes and Shallow Graves

by pharika (horrorterrific)



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: and eldrazi violence as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2014-10-02
Packaged: 2018-02-19 15:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2393996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horrorterrific/pseuds/pharika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nissa is invited to tell stories around the fire, she begins to feel that she's finally been accepted by the Tajuru village. Unfortunately, her tale about meeting a demon isn't nearly as terrifying as the real events unfolding in peaceful Turntimber.<br/>Set during Chapter 1 and 2 of Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

      “I give!” huffed the burly elf, as Nissa pinned him to the ground. She removed her elbow from his neck and helped him up. To her surprise, she received some congratulatory shoves from the crowd. The other young rangers hung upside-down from the trees and pulled their defeated friend’s hair as he stood.

      “Next time, my money’s on the Joraga!” said one of the warriors.

      “Your mistake was betting on Rirra,” teased another. “Put your wager on a real Tajuru warrior next time!”

      “Give me a break! She has the shoulders of a baloth!” exclaimed Rirra, as he brushed himself off.

      “You think a ‘real warrior’ could take Nissa? She beat me, as well, and as I remember none of you have managed that yet. Now pay up,” Hiba boasted. He leapt from a low branch and held out a pouch for his winnings.

      Nissa sat down and wiped the sweat from her face. She was making progress with befriending the other rangers her age, much more than she was making with the elders. She’d even been invited out with the rangers on their evening off, and learned that they liked nothing better than to play games and make bets. Back home, the only time she ever wrestled was in battle, and gambling was forbidden. She wasn’t sure how to act.

      “The fire’s done!” called Aluril, one of the apprentice healers. The others jostled into a circle around the warm fire and pulled over logs and rocks to sit on. Hiba sat in the grass next to Nissa, with quite a few coins jingling in his pocket—he was the only one who’d bet on her winning.

      “Who knows a good story? And I don’t want Tantiri’s 'ghoul wurm' story again. We’ve heard that mess enough,” said Rirra.

      “That was a true story!”

      “That doesn’t make it a good one.”

      “I know a story,” said Nissa.

      The elves stopped merrymaking and stared her.

      “Let’s hear it then, Cap! I heard there’s lots of ghosts in Bala Ged,” said Hiba.

     “There are plenty. But this isn’t a ghost story, it’s just something that happened to me once. I’ve seen every manner of beast from here ’til Guul Draz, but even I couldn’t say what it was.”

      “So it’s a real story?” asked Aluril. She cozied up to Tantiri, and the young elves all stared at Nissa with excitement.

      Nissa put a hand over her heart. “By my honor, every word is true, as I remember it. It was a few years after I left my village, when I spent a lot of time walking by myself along the migration paths used by our caravans. I was in the hills near the border, an area frequented only by druids and unsavory types. But as I am both unsavory and a druid, I wasn’t worried. I could hear an expedition coming north as I traveled south, and where the elf-trail joins the main road—if you could call it a road—we crossed paths. The group was unhurt but terrified. ‘There’s something up there, elf, never heard nothin’ like it,’ the humans told me, ‘that’s no place for a wee girl alone.' I assured them that although I was a child, and alone, this was my territory, and I hiked on as they fled with their hurda. 

      "I thought to myself that the humans had spooked themselves over a gomazoa, and that they would find much more to fear if they continued down into the Tangled Vales, so I slept well the first night. However, as I traveled further into the hills, I noticed two things that disturbed me—first, the bloodbriar was wet with blood, and second, many trees were felled unnaturally. I cut off a piece of bloodbriar and tasted it, but I couldn’t recognize the blood, and there was no sign of struggle on the vines and only bones in the roots. And the trees, many strong trees with deep roots, had been torn from the earth. Neither the Roil nor the largest beasts in that area could sunder them so violently, but as the dead trees were beyond my healing, I moved on. Two days later I was hungry and tired enough to permit making camp, and despite an eerie feeling, I fell asleep under another ruined tree.

      "A loud whining and the distinct odor of blood woke me in the middle of the night, and I sprung to my feet to flee. It is Joraga belief, as you know, to never harm a beast unless it is to be eaten or sacrificed, so I was well-practiced at escaping before a fight. The creature lurked in the bushes and reared up as if to attack, crying out loudly and knocking aside small branches as it stumbled toward my camp. To my surprise, it was only a wildcat cub, drawn to the warmth of my dying fire. I told myself I was foolishly frightened and congratulated the wildcat for scaring an elf ranger, but as I ran a hand over the deep scratches along its flank, I wondered if it was indeed the cat that had caused my uneasiness the night before. I closed my eyes and listened to the forest, and heard ants crawling through the leaves, and birds resting in their nests, and nothing out of the ordinary…much like we hear tonight.” 

      A half dozen pairs of long ears twitched, noticing the tiny sounds of the Turntimber forest bed. Their wide eyes told Nissa that her story was going over well, and with a concealed smile she pondered how best to finish it.

      “I tried to sleep again. I reasoned that the cub must have fallen into the bloodbriar I had seen earlier, and hurt itself escaping. It seemed reasonable that my fatigue was making me fear the shadows. But I woke again in no time, to the poor wildcat biting my ear, and a hellish shriek from the darkness. Something large tumbled through the trees, screaming like no man or beast I knew. I grabbed my staff but the moment I twisted forth my sword, the shrieking stopped. The warm air grew cold and the smell of blood became overpowering. As as I stared into the black night, I saw a pair of glowing eyes staring back at me. Through the starlight I could make out the figure of a man, smaller than a giant but larger than an elf, with large, veiny wings raised to the moon. For a moment, its glowing eyes met mine in the darkness."

      A real shriek caused Nissa to jump and fall off her log. Rirra had fallen to the ground laughing, after sneaking up behind Aluril and grabbing her shoulders, but she wasn’t nearly as amused. Nissa heard Hiba laughing behind her and realized he had planned to scare her as well, and gave him a look that caused him to laugh even harder.

      “You’ll pay for ruining my story,” said Nissa, crossing her arms with exaggerated disappointment.

      “Oh?” Hiba paused a moment before dashing into the trees. Nissa overturned a carefully stacked pile of kindling as she leapt after him. They ran through the timbers until they both collapsed back at the fire ring, out of breath.

      “I’ve got a story, too!” said Aluril with a smile. “I heard it from my cousin in MossCrack. He has a friend who swears he saw it all. It was maybe a week ago, so it’s probably still there if you all want to go see."

      “What is it?” asked Nissa.

      “There was—I don’t remember exactly how he described it. My cousin’s friend was in a ranger party, and they came across something in the woods. It was sort of like a large hole, but they couldn’t see the bottom. A few of them threw logs down but couldn’t hear them hit anything, not even leaves. They were going to send someone down it but their captain convinced them all to go back and report it to the elders. The elders thought the captain was playing a joke, or trying to get out of real work—he’s another friend of my cousin’s and they all are known to play hooky—but it was real. They went back the next day and it was still there, everyone in the party swore to it. And at the same time, people started disappearing.”

      “Damn, Aluril, are you being serious? We should have heard about someone disappearing,” said Tantiri. No one was smiling anymore. MossCrack was close enough that they all had friends or family there.

      “My cousin says the elders are keeping it quiet, but... four days passed and six people went missing. Two were rangers who never returned, but no one even saw the other four leave. They were seen at home before night, but found missing in the morning. My cousin’s friend’s party knew somehow that the bottomless hole had something, maybe everything, to do with the disappearances, and they went back to the spot with rope and torches.

      “The bravest elf in the party was tied to a long harness and given a torch, and they all watched as she rappelled down the inside of the pit. The walls were smooth and straight, which seemed odd, and they didn’t hear her say anything as she went deeper and deeper, but they did hear her scream.  All five of the other rangers pulled her harness as fast as they could and she was alright when they got her out, but she was crying and couldn’t tell them what she found until they all got home. Apparently all six of the missing people were at the bottom, dead.”

      “Why hasn’t anyone sent a warning over?” Hiba asked quietly.

      “That’s not all—the woman who went down into the hole, her husband woke up and found her gone, but her boots were still by the door, so he ran to the pit and found her there, standing by the edge in her nightclothes. Apparently, she’d didn’t even remember walking all the way there, only that she woke up and felt an intense desire to jump into the pit, and she had some sense that she was returning somewhere. Her husband said she kept repeating some phrase… something about the loam. She’s been with a healer ever since,” explained Aluril. 

      The firelight that had seemed so warm and bright suddenly felt cold, and their circle felt isolated and exposed.

      “We should leave,” said Nissa. The others gathered their gear and hiked silently into the trees.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When disaster hits MossCrack, an aged warrior deliberates on the needs of his people.

     Ten elves—seven warriors and three healers—stepped carefully over the wreckage of MossCrack. More than two days had passed since the attack on the home tree, and when the group tracking the mysterious creatures didn’t return, Leaf Talker Anaze was sent to investigate.

     “Did no one survive?” a young warrior asked. Anaze turned over the remains of a dead elf—he recognized the warrior Rirra. The next was Tantiri; he knew the dead girl’s parents. A few warriors were able to move the massive corpse of a tentacle-beast and one of their healers cried out as he recognized the body crushed beneath it. Almost all of the missing warriors were accounted for, and they began moving the bodies—or the largest chunks they could find—into a group to make some semblance of a grave.

     “There are many vampire corpses, too…”

     “And Hiba and Nissa are no where to be found.”

    Anaze shook his head and tried again to sense the energies of the missing warriors. “Hiba is dead,” he said, “but Nissa’s consciousness is too unfamiliar to me. I believe she lives, but I cannot say for sure."

     “That Joraga fled as soon as she saw danger! She and her vampire allies are halfway to Bala Ged by now,” a young warrior spat.

     “Silence! Only young fools look for strife with our kin. We are facing a much bigger danger now, and we needed Leaf Talker Nissa as an ally,” Anaze said gruffly. He was an ancient elf, and learned long ago that the real enemies were not the Joraga, or even vampires. He surveyed the remains of MossCrack once again. Something occurred to him, a story he heard when he was young and believed such tales, but it was nothing more than a fairy story to scare children. If only some of the warriors remained alive to give an explanation. "There is nothing more we can do here. Derin will take the healers back to the Home Tree, and my warriors will come with me to track Nissa. There are vampire tracks leading away from here," he ordered. Some of the young warriors scoffed.

     "There's no way they captured her alive unless she bargained with them!"

     "Why should we risk losing our remaining warriors for a foreigner?"

     "If you children are unprepared to follow orders, return home with the healers. If there are any warriors among you, ready your bows and come with me," Anaze barked. Ashamed, all of the young warriors joined Anaze's group.

     “Why do you think the vampires didn’t kill her?” a tearful healer, Aluril, asked. Anaze thought he remembered her being rather close to Hiba and Nissa. 

     “I can’t say. For now we just need noses to the ground finding the trail fast,” he said carefully. He knew the exact answer to her question, but if the novice warriors knew exactly why vampires keep their prisoners alive, they would lose what little resolve they had left.

     Anaze had worked with many young Tajuru officers and had seen every kind of magical prodigy pass through his apprenticeship. The Joraga girl was not just a  _prodigy,_  communing with the growing things of Turntimber with more skill than he’d seen in generations, but a  _master of magic._ Those sorts of spells were not learned from any living teacher on Zendikar, and Anaze wondered if it was because she was inventing them herself, or if the trees and beasts themselves were her teacher. 

     Either way, there was no elf alive who had the potential to lead their people the way that errant fool could. The half-blind warrior mage would bring her back alive whether the other Tajuru liked her or not.

     “The trail leads toward Graypelt. There are three, moving slowly,” the scouts reported.

     “Perfect. Follow them!" 


End file.
